In Quebec French, /a ~ ɑ/ and /ε ~ aε/ are phonemic, whereas in Hexagonal French, these vowels are merged to /a/ and /ε/, respectively. We tested the effects of extended exposure to Quebec French (QF) as a second dialect (D2) on Hexagonal French (HF) speakers’ abilities to perceive these contrasts. Three groups of listeners were recruited: (1) non-mobile HF speakers born and living in France (HF group); (2) non-mobile QF speakers born and living in Quebec (QF group); and mobile HF speakers having moved from France to Quebec (HF>QF group). To determine any fine-grained effects of second dialect (D2) exposure on the perception of vowel contrasts, participants completed a same–different discrimination task in which they listened to stimuli paired at different levels of acoustic similarity. As expected, QF listeners showed a significant advantage over the HF group in discriminating between /a ~ ɑ/ and /ε ~ aε/ pairs, thus suggesting an own-dialect advantage in perceptual discrimination. Interestingly, this own-dialect advantage appeared to be greater for the /ε ~ aε/ contrast. The QF listeners also showed an advantage over the HF>QF group, and, surprisingly, this advantage was greater than over the HF group. In other words, the results suggested that the acquisition of a second dialect did not enhance the abilities of listeners to perceive differences between phonemic contrasts in that D2. If anything, the acquisition of the D2 disadvantaged the perceptual abilities of the HF>QF group. This might be because these phonemes have, over time, become less acoustically marked for the HF>QF participants and have, potentially, become integrated into their D1 phonemic categories.

Intensifiers are known for their dynamic nature, due in part to the expressive function they serve. However, while the quantitative patterning of English intensifiers has been studied extensively, the intensifier system of French has yet to be well documented. This study therefore examines intensifier use from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective in the ESLO corpus of spoken Hexagonal French. The quantitative distributions of adjective intensifiers are compared across two corpora collected in 1970 and 2010. Results show a significant decrease in intensification rate over time. Analysis of individual intensifiers show some to have decreased in use over time (e.g. très, tellement), others to have increased (e.g. vraiment, tout), and others to appear only in the later sample (e.g. super, hyper). Longitudinal change is also found in the adjectival function (predicative vs. attributive) and collocational width of intensifiers. Relating to social factors, no significant gender difference is found between female and male speakers’ intensification rate over time. Furthermore, très dominates as the preferred intensifier among older generations, while younger speakers favour more varied intensifiers. Analyzing such changes in the use of intensifiers over the past half century contributes to a better understanding of the structure and development of the French intensifier system.

Previous work has shown that L2-accented speech incurs a processing cost even when accurately understood. It remains unknown, however, whether an online processing cost is found when listeners process speech produced in L1 accents that are not their own. In this study, we examine this question by using comparative pupil dilation as a measure of cognitive load. Participants from the South of England heard sentences produced in four different accents: Southern British English (the listeners’ own familiar accent), American English (a standard L1 accent widely used in media), Glaswegian English (a less-familiar regional L1 accent), and Mandarin Chinese-accented English (an L2 English accent). Results show that Chinese-accented speech elicited significantly larger pupil dilation responses compared with Southern British English. Speech from less-familiar L1 accents elicited pupil dilation responses of different shapes and trajectories, suggesting differences in processing of these accents. Furthermore, participants showed larger mean pupil dilation when they heard relatively less-familiar L1 American-accented speech than when hearing Glaswegian English. Interestingly, this effect was found despite participants self-reporting that they were less familiar with the Glaswegian accent and found it more effortful to comprehend compared with American English. These results suggest that accurately perceived and highly intelligible L1 accents such as American English also incur a cognitive cost in processing, but to a smaller extent compared with L2-accented speech. We discuss the implications of our findings for the relationship between exposure, subjective effortfulness measures, and pupil dilation responses.

Longitudinal change in the adjective intensifier system of Hexagonal French – ERRATUM - Volume 35

Research has shown that speakers’ native production patterns can change after living in adulthood in a region where a second dialect (D2) of their native language is spoken, yet relatively little is known about how speech perception changes after postadolescent D2 exposure. This study explores this topic by examining how varying degrees of exposure to Quebec French and Hexagonal French affect comprehension of speech in these dialects. A speech-in-noise perception experiment was conducted among mobile and nonmobile speakers of Quebec and Hexagonal French to test the competing effects of native dialect and D2 exposure on cross-dialectal speech perception. Results show an own-dialect advantage for all groups in their comprehension of speech in noise, though this advantage is smaller for the mobile groups, particularly for the mobile Hexagonal French listeners. An effect of D2 exposure on D2 perception is also revealed for the mobile Hexagonal listeners but not for the Québécois listeners, indicating an asymmetry in cross-dialectal perception. These findings suggest that, while phonological representations for the native dialect remain robust, processing of D2 speech can improve after extended, postadolescent exposure to this dialect. Furthermore, the extent of this adaptation may be modulated by mobile listeners’ prior experience with this dialect.

Individuals’ speech patterns can change after extended exposure to a second dialect (D2) of their native language, even in adulthood. While speech production changes in D2 acquisition are well documented, less is known about changes in perception and how production and perception interact. The present study investigates these issues in relation to geographically mobile speakers of Quebec French and Hexagonal French (the French of continental France) by comparing them to non-mobile speakers of each dialect. A sentence elicitation task and a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) lexical identification task were used to assess change in production and categorical perception of /a ~ ɑ/, a phonemic contrast that is widespread in Quebec French yet largely merged to /a/ in Hexagonal French. Results revealed no effect overall of mobility on /a ~ ɑ/ realization in production, but an asymmetrical effect of mobility on perception among the mobile Hexagonal French participants. Additionally, a complex interplay was observed between changes to perception and production, challenging the notion of a direct link between these domains in D2 acquisition. These findings present evidence of post-adolescent, perceptual adaptation and suggest that such perceptual adaptation is not linearly associated with production-based changes in D2 acquisition.